23 If Those Pixels Would Just Scroll Faster

Posted on February 17, 2023 by Mike Glyer

(1) NASA “HUMAN COMPUTER” NOW ON THE MAP. “Moon Mountain Name Honors NASA Mathematician Melba Mouton” the space agency announced this week.

Scientists recently named a mesa-like lunar mountain that towers above the landscape carved by craters near the Moon’s South Pole. This unique feature will now be referred to as “Mons Mouton,” after NASA mathematician and computer programmer Melba Roy Mouton (MOO-tawn).

Members of NASA’s Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER) mission proposed the name to the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The flat-topped mountain is adjacent to the western rim of the Nobile Crater, on which VIPER will land and explore during its approximately 100-day mission as part of NASA’s Artemis program.

The IAU theme for naming mountains (mons) on the Moon focuses on “scientists who have made outstanding or fundamental contributions to their fields.” The lunar landmark naming honors and recognizes Mouton’s life, her accomplishments as a computer scientist, and her contributions to NASA’s missions.

“Melba Mouton was one of our pioneering leaders at NASA,” said Sandra Connelly, the acting associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “She not only helped NASA take the lead in exploring the unknown in air and space, but she also charted a path for other women and people of color to pursue careers and lead cutting-edge science at NASA.”

Mouton was first employed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, in 1959, just a year after the space agency was established. She became the head mathematician who led a group of “human computers,” who tracked the Echo 1 and 2 satellites, launched into Earth’s orbit in 1960 and 1964, respectively.

A few years later, in 1961, Mouton was the head programmer responsible for the Mission and Trajectory Analysis Division’s Program Systems Branch – the team who coded computer programs used to calculate spacecraft locations and trajectories, giving NASA the ability to track spacecraft while in orbit.

Before retiring in 1973, after a career at NASA that spanned 14 years, Mouton had become the assistant chief of research programs for the Trajectory and Geodynamics Division at Goddard. In appreciation of her dedicated service and outstanding accomplishments, which culminated in the successful Apollo 11 Moon landing on July 20, 1969, she was recognized with an Apollo Achievement Award.

(2) BSFS REVAMPS COC. The Baltimore Science Fiction Society has posted the updated BSFS Code of Conduct, approved by its Board of Directors on February 11. An extensive document, its Introduction says:

The Baltimore Science Fiction Society (BSFS) exists to promote the creation and appreciation of science fiction, fantasy, and related sub-genres, primarily through literary art forms, but also embracing the many related cultural arts in graphical, musical, theatrical, and media forms inspired by speculative fiction. BSFS welcomes all people to be part of the activities we sponsor and to consider becoming one of our members.

We affirmatively welcome individuals who identify with groups based on characteristics such as, but not limited to (in alphabetical order) age, ancestry, citizenship, color, disability status, familial status (including marital status), gender identity and/or expression, immigration status, level of educational attainment, national origin, physical appearance, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and/or veteran status. Attendees at our meetings/events and participants in our social media and/or digital platforms, are expected to conduct themselves in a manner that is courteous and respectful of the other people present. By attending a BSFS event, all individuals are required to abide by BSFS policies, including this Code of Conduct, venue policies, and all municipal, state, and federal laws….

(3) HARPERCOLLINS RESOLUTION. Publishers Weekly, in “HarperCollins Union Ratifies New Contract”, says strikers return to work next week.

After three months on strike, unionized HarperCollins employees will return to work on Tuesday, February 21, after voting 194-10 to ratify a labor agreement with the publisher that includes a higher minimum salary and new benefits.

“We are pleased that the agreement was ratified,” HC said in a statement. “We are excited to move forward together.”

According to Local 2110 of the UAW, the union that represents unionized HarperCollins employees, the contract “achieves improved compensation and benefits, including higher minimums, guaranteed annual increases for everyone rated above ‘unsatisfactory,’ two hours of overtime without approval for lowest paid employees, improved union rights with release time during work hours, paid time to participate in the joint labor-management committee and company’s diversity initiatives, improved paid time off, and ability to continue to work remotely until July 1.”

In terms of minimum salaries, the lowest salary, $47,500, will increase to $48,500 in January 2024 and go up to $50,000 in January 2025. More details of the agreement can be found here….

(4) NEW VOICE IN ANALOG. Rosemary Claire Smith’s first installment of Analog’s book review column, “The Reference Library”, appeared in the latest issue. (Via Cat Rambo.)

…Thankfully, while awaiting the next crewed mission to the Moon, readers like me can sink into a spate of new books that build on recent scientific discoveries and technological advances to reenvision what off-planet settlements could look like during this century and into the next. John Kessel, Mary Robinette Kowal, Tochi Onyebuchi, and Maurice Broaddus put forward diverse, well-thought-out visions for lunar settlements and communities of varying sizes in space, mindful of the ramifications these developments may have for everyone who remains on Earth. …

(5) INCREDIBLE WITNESS. Today’s litigation release from Dominion Voting Systems includes something of genre interest: “Sidney Powell cited woman who claimed to be headless, time-traveling entity in email pushing election conspiracy theories” reports MSN.com.

Trump-allied lawyer Sidney Powell sent Fox an email full of wild claims from a woman claiming to be a decapitated time-traveler, according to a recent court filing.

Excerpts of the message formed part of a filing from Dominion Voting Systems released on Thursday in its defamation case against Fox….

(6) PERISHO OBITUARY. The SFWA Blog yesterday mourned the passing of Marjorie Nelson Perisho who died December 29. Their tribute begins:

Marjorie Nelson Perisho (24 June 1939–29 December 2022), who also wrote under the names Marjorie Nelson and Majliss Larson, was a lifetime SFWA member. Her Star Trek novel Pawns and Symbols, was published in 1985 and later translated into Serbian….

(7) MEMORY LANE.

1962 – [Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

So what is our Beginning this Scroll? Well it’s A Clockwork Orange.

I read this novel by Burgess oddly enough in a high school literature class. Brave teacher, I’d say.

It was published sixty-one years ago by William Heinemann, and turned into the Kubrick film nine years later. The film won a Hugo at the first L.A. Con.

A true first goes for four thousand dollars currently.

Now A Clockwork Orange to me, and this is emphasized in this Beginning, represent the banality of Evil. Anthony Burgess makes the lads sound so, well, ordinary here. They’re just drinking milk. Drugged out milk, yes, but milk none the less. And planning to do vicious things.

So here’s our Beginning…

What’s it going to be then, eh?’ There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim, Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry. The Korova Milkbar was a milk-plus mesto, and you may, O my brothers, have forgotten what these mestos were like, things changing so skorry these days and everybody very quick to forget, newspapers not being read much neither. Well, what they sold there was milk plus something else. They had no licence for selling liquor, but there was no law yet against prodding some of the new veshches which they used to put into the old moloko, so you could peet it with vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom or one or two other veshches which would give you a nice quiet horrorshow fifteen minutes admiring Bog And All His Holy Angels And Saints in your left shoe with lights bursting all over your mozg. Or you could peet milk with knives in it, as we used to say, and this would sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of dirty twenty-to-one, and that was what we were peeting this evening I’m starting off the story with.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Born February 17, 1912 — Andre Norton. She penned well over a dozen series, but her major series was Witch World which began rather appropriately with Witch World in 1963. The first six novels in that series were Ace Books paperback originals published in the Sixties. If you putting together the essential reading list of hers, what would be on it? (Died 2005.)
Born February 17, 1913 — David Duncan. A screenwriter and novelist who was twice nominated for Hugos, first at Seacon for writing the screenplay for The Time Machine, and at NyCon 3 for the same work on Fantastic Voyage. He also wrote Time Machine: The Journey Back sequel to The Time Machine. And he wrote The Outer Limits’ “The Human Factor” episode. (Died 1999.)
Born February 17, 1930 — Ruth Rendell, whose full name of Ruth Barbara Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, CBE (née Grasemann) is quite wonderful. I know her only as an English author of very superb thrillers and somewhat disturbing murder mysteries but ISFDB lists her as doing horror as well to my surprise in the form as three novels, to wit The Killing Doll, The Tree of Hands and The Bridesmaid, plus a not inconsiderable amount of short fiction that is fantasy no doubt. She was also the editor of A Warning to the Curious: The Ghost Stories of M.R. James. (Died 2015.)
Born February 17, 1939 — Kathy Keeton. Founder and publisher of Omni. It was founded by her and her partner and future husband Bob Guccione, the publisher of Penthouse. It would publish a number of stories that have become genre classics, such as Card’s “Unaccompanied Sonata”, Gibson’s “Burning Chrome” “and “Johnny Mnemonic” and George R. R. Martin’s “Sandkings” to name a few of the stories that appeared there. (Died 1997.)
Born February 17, 1947 — Bruce Gillespie, 76. He’s one of the major Australian SF fans and is best known for his long-running fanzine SF Commentary. Over the years, he’s published The Metaphysical Review, Steam Engine Time and is currently putting out Treasure. He was fan guest of honor at Aussiecon 3, the 57th Worldcon held in Melbourne in 1999.
Born February 17, 1954 — Don Coscarelli, 69. A film director, producer, and screenwriter best known for horror films. His credits include the Phantasm series, The Beastmaster, and Bubba Ho-Tep, the latter based a novella by Joe R. Lansdale whom I’ve met and who is a really nice person.

(9) COMICS SECTION.

This cartoon from The New Yorker dares to contradict Stan Lee.

(10) OCTOTHORPE. Episode 77 of the Octothorpe podcast, “Slightly Less Troglodyte-y Than You”, is live.

John Coxon has trauma, Alison Scott has poetry and Liz Batty hasn’t got Paramount+. We draft our picks for the Hugo Awards nominations in Best Dramatic Presentation: Short Form before, er, picking some more things.

(11) BANNED PICTURE BOOKS. PEN America introduces readers to “The Most Banned Picture Books of 2022”. There’s a three-way tie for first place.

PEN America counted school book bans in the 2021-2022 school year and found an alarming 1,648 titles banned somewhere in the United States — the most comprehensive count of book bans to date. With some titles restricted in multiple places, the total count of book bans is more than 2,500.

The most banned books were primarily young adult or adult titles, but picture books for the youngest readers were not spared, with 317 titles banned. Several of the most banned picture books are nonfiction, including histories of civil rights and gay pride. Others are lighthearted fiction about animals or babies. Most feature a protagonist of color or characters who reflect the LGBTQ+ experience.

This is the list of the most banned picture books of the 2021-2022 school year, according to the PEN America Index of School Book Bans. For more on what kinds of bans are happening and where, see the full Banned in the USA report.

MOST BANNED PICTURE BOOKS

1 (tie). Pride: The Story of Harvey Milk and the Rainbow Flag, by Rob Sanders and Steve Salerno, 5 bans

This true story traces the origins of of the Gay Pride flag from its beginnings in 1978 with activist Harvey Milk and designer Gilbert Baker.

1 (tie). I Am Jazz, by Jessica Herthel, Jazz Jennings, and Shelagh McNicholas, 5 bans

The story of a transgender child based on the real-life experience of transgender activist Jazz Jennings.

1 (tie). And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell, Justin Richardson, and Henry Cole, 5 bans

The heartwarming true story of two male penguins at the Central Park zoo who adopt a baby penguin.

(12) IF YOU’RE NEAR SANTA MONICA. Variety tells fans, “Guillermo del Toro to Host ‘Pinocchio’ 35mm Screening at Aero Theatre”.

In celebration of his love for animation, Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro is set to program a weekend of animation for the American Cinematheque at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica called “Guillermo del Toro’s Weekend of Animation.”

The films programmed by del Toro will include screenings of “The Red Turtle” and “I Lost My Body.”

The weekend of animation will open with the 2016 Studio Ghibli film, “The Red Turtle,” with del Toro virtually introducing the film. Following that, there will be a screening of the Netflix film “I Lost My Body.”

Sunday concludes with a 35mm screening of the Oscar-nominated film “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio.” Del Toro and co-director Mark Gustafson will attend a post-screening Q&A….

(13) MANCON 1952. Rob Hansen has added pages covering the first Manchester con to his fanhistory website: “MANCON (1952)” at Fiawol.org.

…Next came the visiting celebrities. John Russell Fearn spoke first, and he turned out to be a very nice friendly sort of character. In answers to an absolute barrage of questions, he released the following information – He enjoys writing S.F. and has done so for about 25 years. The pseudonym Vargo Statten was his publisher’s idea, not his; he doesn’t like it, but as he’s under contract there’s nothing he can do. Astron del Martia is another of his names, but he only wrote one story under it, “The Trembling World’. The rest are not his. The Vargo Statten tales are turned out at the rate of three a month, each one comprising 40,000 words, taking eight days to write. It’s a full time job even when they are not accepted. He sometimes finds it difficult to find time for a shave….

(14) VIDEO OF THE DAY. There’s quite a cast in “Extrapolations”, coming from Apple TV+ on March 17.

Extrapolations is a bracing drama from writer, director and executive producer Scott Z. Burns that introduces a near future where the chaotic effects of climate change have become embedded into our everyday lives. Eight interwoven stories about love, work, faith and family from across the globe will explore the intimate, life-altering choices that must be made when the planet is changing faster than the population. Every story is different, but the fight for our future is universal. And when the fate of humanity is up against a ticking clock, the battle between courage and complacency has never been more urgent. Are we brave enough to become the solution to our own undoing before it’s too late?

[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Andrew Porter, Michael Toman, Robert Brown, Rob Hansen, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cat Eldridge.]

Pixel Scroll 4/1/22 This Title Contains A Non-Fungible Tribble

Posted on April 1, 2022 by Mike Glyer

(1) DIAL Q FOR MOCKERY. It may be April 1 but calling 323-634-5667 gets you the message: “Star Trek Picard Easter Egg: Real Phone Number Lets You Call Q” reports Gizmodo.

Which, of course actually works. Turns out, calling the number and not being fictional rogue geneticist Adam Soong however, just gets Q mocking you for trying to call the mighty, incomprehensible society that is the Q Continuum. Check out our recording of the phone message below:

If you can’t hear the message, here’s a transcript:
“Hello! You have reached the Q Continuum. We are unable to get to the phone right now, because we are busy living in a plane of existence your feeble, mortal mind cannot possibly comprehend.
“Furthermore, it’s pointless to leave a message, because we of course already knew that you would call, and we simply do not care. Have a nice day.”

(2) A FOOLISH CONSISTENCY. Daniel Dern sent this link with the caution – “Note, (Stardate) April 1, 2022.” “Timekettle New Cross-Species Translator Supports Klingon and Dog&Cat”.

The Timekettle team has launched cross-species language translation through its self-developed translation engine on April 1st, 2022. It is now possible to chat with aliens from the Klingon Empire, as well as with your pets via Woof or Meow.

Dern also suggested trying it on this: “GreenEggsAndHam” at the Klingon Language Wiki.

(3) PRESSED DOWN, SHAKEN TOGETHER, AND RUNNING OVER. What was Brandon Sanderson’s final take? According to CNBC, “Author’s record-breaking Kickstarter campaign closes at $41.7 million”.

Brandon Sanderson asked Kickstarter fans for $1 million to self-publish four novels he wrote during the pandemic. Thirty days later, his campaign has topped $41.7 million from more than 185,000 backers and is the most-funded Kickstarter in the crowdfunding site’s history.
Sanderson’s campaign surpassed the previous record holder in just three days, topping the $20.3 million in funds that smartwatch company Pebble Technology generated in 2015.
With the project successfully funded, Kickstarter will take a 5% fee from the funds collected, or more than $2 million….

(4) EATING THE FANTASTIC. Scott Edelman invites listeners to pig out on pork BBQ with Paul Witcover in episode 168 of his Eating the Fantastic podcast.

Paul Witcover‘s first novel, Waking Beauty (1997) was short-listed for the James Tiptree, Jr. Award. He’s also written five other novels: Tumbling After (2005), Dracula: Asylum (2006), The Emperor of All Things (2013) and its sequel, The Watchman of Eternity (2015), plus most recently, Lincolnstein, just out from PS Publishing.
His 2004 novella “Left of the Dial” was nominated for a Nebula Award, and his 2009 novella “Everland” was nominated for a World Fantasy Award. His short fiction has appeared in Twilight Zone magazine, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine, Night Cry, and other venues. A collection of his short fiction, Everland and Other Stories, appeared from PS Publishing in 2009, and was nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award. He’s been a frequent reviewer for Realms of Fantasy, Locus, New York Review of Science Fiction, and elsewhere. He teaches fiction at UCLA Extension and at Southern New Hampshire University, where he is the Dean of the Online MFA program.
We discussed the reason the pandemic resulted in some of the best years of his freelance career, the way he thrives as a writer when dealing with the boundaries of historical fiction, why his new novel Lincolnstein is “exactly what you think it is,” how he writes in yesterday’s vernacular without perpetuating yesterday’s stereotypes, what can and can’t be taught about writing, the reasons he felt lucky to have attended Clarion with Lucius Shepard, the effect reading slush at Asimov’s and Twilight Zone magazines had on his own fiction, what Algis Budrys told him that hit him like a brick, and much more.

(5) PATREON EXPLAINS IT TO JDA. Jon Del Arroz, who as usual says he didn’t do nothin’, asked Patreon to explain why they killed his account. They answered and he has posted their response letter — which mentions that “our guidelines apply equally to off-platform activity.” It would be ironic if Patreon bounced him for the racist and misogynistic tweets and YouTube videos he posts which those platforms permit to go undisciplined despite their own community guidelines.

(6) AGING ORANGE. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] Check out BBC Radio 4’s Front Row arts programme. Last night’s episode includes an item on A Clockwork Orange, it being the 60th anniversary of the novel. It was very interesting. Apparently there was an unpublished sequel which was basically having a message that art does not spread violence though society. Front Row – “A Clockwork Orange, the National Poetry Competition winner announced, Slow Horses and Coppelia reviewed”.

(7) WESTWARD HO. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In the Financial Times behind a paywall, Tom Faber reviews Horizon Forbidden West.

The one-line pitch is that you’re a hunter-gatherer fighting robot dinosaurs across a post-apocalyptic US. With such a fun hook, nobody needed Horizon Zero Dawn to have a good story, yet its narrative proved unexpectedly compelling. The game takes place a thousand years after rampaging machines have wiped out most of humanity. Survivors have clustered into tribal communities who view relics of technology as objects of either suspicion or religious reverence. The dramas of warring clans are narrated alongside the tale of how our world came to ruin. Guerillas struck gold with flame-haired heroine Aloy, who balances grit and tenderness as one of the most memorable new characters of its console generation…
…Forbidden West is the first truly eye-popping flex of the PS5’s muscles, with graphics so beautiful that I have often found myself halting the adventure just to gawp at the landscape, whether dust clouds careening across the desert or forest leaves quivering in the breeze. The robot enemies are ingenious works of biomechanical clockwork, shaped like snakes, hippos, ferrets, rams, and pterodactyls, with electric cables for sinew and gleaming steel for ligaments.

(8) CLARION WEST CLASSES. Registration for Clarion West’s Spring online classes and workshops is now open. Full information and ticket prices at the links.

“Spotting Issues in Your Publishing Contract with Ken Liu” April 27, 4:00 p.m. Pacific.

This workshop aims to give you practical tools for evaluating publishing contracts. While it’s impossible to teach you everything there is to know about the legal side of publishing in a single class, it is possible to gain a general understanding of the rights involved and the practical mindset needed to protect your interests.
After a brief lecture on common publishing contractual terms, instructor Ken Liu (a lawyer and an author) will lead participants in interactive exercises to spot potential issues in language taken from actual contracts. Whether you’re looking at your first pro short story sale or an offer to adapt your novel into a TV show, the exercises in this class will help you.
Depending on the contracts used in the exercises, topics covered may include publishing rights (print, web, electronic, audio, etc.), performance rights, foreign language rights, media rights (gaming, film, and TV), royalties, advances, taxes, indemnification, etc. There will also be a Q&A period to address specific questions from participants.
This class is provided for educational purposes only, and none of the content should be construed as professional legal, tax, or financial advice.

“Writing Transgender and Nonbinary Characters with Milo Todd” April 24, 11:00 a.m. Pacific.

With demand for transgender and nonbinary narratives on the rise, more cisgender (non-trans/nonbinary) people are adding trans and nonbinary characters to their stories. But what can you do to make sure you’re providing accurate representation? In this session, we will explore the “Three Es” of writing a trans/nonbinary character, the best craft approaches for each, and their potential pitfalls. We’ll also go over (in)appropriate reasons to write a trans/nonbinary narrative, general dos, and don’ts, and an overview of the experiences most often used incorrectly in stories.

“Funny Business: Writing Humorous Speculative Fiction with Shiv Ramdas” First of three sessions April 12 at 11:00 a.m. Pacific.

This class for intermediate to advanced writers focused on craft to help you flex your funny muscles (since bones don’t flex). We’ll cover new ways to look at your funny fiction, techniques, exercises, the odd hack and trick- and culminate in a small mini-workshop where we’ll go over a piece you worked on!
This class meets three times: April 12, 16 and May 10, 2022, 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM Pacific.

“Authors and Libraries: Being Awesome Together with Robin Bradford” April 21 4:00 p.m. Pacific.

This class will give an overview of the tools libraries use to discover materials and what makes a title more likely to be ordered for a library’s collection. We will also discuss the challenges and opportunities librarians face in acquiring materials and how authors can position themselves to be in a library’s line of sight when it comes to getting their books included in library collections.
We’ll cover physical materials (books and audiobooks) as well as the prickly digital (ebooks and audiobooks) library landscape.
Finally, we’ll also cover a little bit about doing library programs, like readings and classes.
Attendees will come away with a better understanding of how libraries locate and purchase materials and the limitations and differences between the library and the consumer markets.

“Persisting as a Short Story Writer with A. T. Greenblatt” April 10 1:00 p.m. Pacific.

You know it’s possible to be a successful short story writer with a full-time job, family, and hobbies. The question is, How? How do you get beyond the slush pile? How do you find the time to write when you have a million other obligations? This class will cover how to level up your craft as a short story writer and how to find the time, motivation, and persistence to stick with it while living a full life.
Suitable for writers at all stages of their careers, this class will emphasize self-compassion and give you ideas for how to level up your stories!

(9) HE WAS AN INFLUENCE ON BRADBURY. [Item by Alan Baumler.] Loren Eisley was a prolific science writer, and at least one sf writer liked him. About his book The Star Thrower Ray Bradbury wrote, “The book will be read and cherished in the year 2001. It will go to the Moon and Mars with future generations. Loren Eiseley’s work changed my life.” In “Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 1,059”, Erik Loomis traces the author’s life for readers of Lawyers, Guns & Money.

…As Ray Bradbury said of Eiseley, “he is every writer’s writer, and every human’s human.” This is a great description and his combination of interest in science, human origins, evolutionary theory, and what it means to be a human being continued to lead to best sellers. He quickly moved on his popularity to become the leading interpreter of science in the United States. Darwin’s Century followed in 1958. I haven’t read that one. I have read his 1960 book The Firmament of Time. This was an attempt to give people hope to live with science in an era of such astounding advances that it threatened human beings, particularly nuclear science….

(10) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.

1995 — [Item by Cat Eldridge.] Twenty-seven years ago this evening on BBC One, the Bugs series first aired. The series was created by Brian Eastman and producer Stuart Doughty with input from writer and producer Brian Clemens who is best known for his work on The Avengers which is why he considered this “an Avengers for the 1990s”. No idea if that was true having not seen it.

It lasted, despite almost being cancelled at the end of series three, for four series and forty episodes. It had an immense, and I do mean that, cast including Jaye Griffiths who was on Silent Witness early on (I’m watching all twenty-one series of it right now), Craig McLalachlan who was the lead in The Doctor Blake Mysteries, Jesse Birdsall who played Fraser Black in the very popular soap opera Hollyoaks and Steve Houghton who’s Gregg Blake in the London Burning series.

So how was it? I couldn’t find any contemporary reviews, but this later review suggests that it was a mixed bag: “Bugs is a mid-1990s British techno-espionage TV series, intended to be The Avengers (1960s) for a new decade. Wikipedia has the facts. Absolutely laden with Hollywood Science tropes, and quite prone to So Bad, It’s Good.” Another review noted that, “The show does have a cult following in the UK and in 2005 was released on DVD. The main cast have also spoken very highly of the show and the work they did on it, expressing that Bugs was deliberately ahead of its time and set a bench mark for other shows to come.”

JustWatch says it is not streaming anywhere at the current time.

(11) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Born April 1, 1883 — Lon Chaney. Actor, director, makeup artist and screenwriter. Best remembered I’d say for the Twenties silent horror films The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera in which he did his own makeup. He developed pneumonia in late 1929 and he was diagnosed with bronchial lung cancer which he died from. (Died 1930.)
Born April 1, 1917 — Sydney Newman. Head of Drama at BBC, he was responsible for both The Avengers and Doctor Who happening. It’s worth noting that Newman’s initial set-up for The Avengers was much grittier than it became in the later years. (Died 1997.)
Born April 1, 1925 — Ernest Kinoy. He was a scriptwriter for such stories as “The Martian Death March” to Dimension X and X Minus One as well as adapting stories by Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick for the both series. He also wrote an adaptation of Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” for NBC’s Presents: Short Story. (Died 2014.)
Born April 1, 1926 — Anne McCaffrey. I read both the original trilogy and what’s called the Harper Hall trilogy oh so many years ago when dragons were something I was intensely interested in. I enjoyed them immensely but haven’t revisited them so I don’t know what the Suck Fairy would make of them. I confess that I had no idea she’d written so much other genre fiction! And I recounted her Hugo awards history in the March 7 Pixel Scroll (item #9). (Died 2011.)
Born April 1, 1930 — Grace Lee Whitney. Yeoman Janice Rand on Star Trek. She would reach the rank of Lt. Commander in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Folks, I just noticed that IMDB says she was only on eight episodes of Trek, all in the first fifteen that aired. It seemed like a lot more at the time. She also appeared in in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. By the last film, she was promoted to being a Lt. Commander in rank. Her last appearance was in Star Trek: Voyager’s “Flashback” along with Hikaru Sulu. Oh, and she was in two video fanfics, Star Trek: New Voyages and Star Trek: Of Gods and Men. (Died 2015.)
Born April 1, 1942 — Samuel R. Delany, 80. There’s no short list of recommended works for him as everything he’s done is brilliant. That said I think I’d start off suggesting a reading first of Babel- 17 and Dhalgren followed by the Return to Nevèrÿon series. His two Hugo wins were at Heicon ’70 for the short story “Time Considered as a Helix of Semi-Precious Stones” as published in New Worlds, December 1968, and at Noreascon 3 (1989) in the Best Non-Fiction Work category for The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village, 1957-1965. I will do a full look at his awards and all of his Hugo nominations in an essay shortly.
Born April 1, 1953 — Barry Sonnenfeld, 69. Director of The Addams Family and its sequel Addams Family Values (both of which I really like), the Men in Black trilogy and Wild Wild West. He also executive-produced Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events which I’ve not seen, and did the same for Men in Black: International, the recent not terribly well-received continuation of that franchise.
Born April 1, 1963 — James Robinson, 59. Writer, both comics and film. Some of his best known comics are the series centered on the Justice Society of America, in particular the Starman character he co-created with Tony Harris. His Starman series is without doubt some of the finest work ever done in the comics field. His screenwriting is a mixed bag. Remember The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen? Well, that’s him. He’s much, much better on the animated Son of Batman film. And I’ll admit that James Robinson’s Complete WildC.A.T.s is a sort of guilty pleasure.

(12) IT CAUGHT ON IN A FLASH. Cora Buhlert has a new story out. A flash story called “Rescue Unwanted,” it appears as part of the flash fiction Friday series of Wyngraf Magazine of Cozy Fantasy: “Cozy Flash: ‘Rescue Unwanted’”.

After a lengthy and laborious climb, Sir Clarenbald the Bold finally reached the summit of the Crag of Doom. The cave of the dragon lay before him, its mouth a dark void in the grey rock….

(13) WHERE IT’S AT. The Movie District has mapped out the “Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) Filming Locations” with a combination of stills from the movie and contemporary Google Maps images. This is pretty damn interesting to me because I used to live two blocks from a few of the places in Sierra Madre.

(14) RAZZIES REVERSED. “Razzie Awards Backtrack, Rescind Bruce Willis Award – and Shelley Duvall Nomination as Well” – The Wrap explains why.

The Razzie Awards have reversed their decision to stand by their “Worst Performance by Bruce Willis in 2021” award. “After much thought and consideration, the Razzies have made the decision to rescind the Razzie Award given to Bruce Willis, due to his recently disclosed diagnosis,” a statement by co-founders John Wilson and Mo Murphy says.
“If someone’s medical condition is a factor in their decision making and/or their performance, we acknowledge that it is not appropriate to give them a Razzie.” Willis’ family announced on Wednesday that the actor had been diagnosed with the cognitive disorder aphasia and was stepping away from acting.
The Razzie Awards came under fire on Wednesday for refusing to rescind the special award for Willis, and for making an inflammatory Tweet. “The Razzies are truly sorry for #BruceWillis diagnosed condition,” the parody awards ceremony wrote on Twitter. “Perhaps this explains why he wanted to go out with a bang in 2021. Our best wishes to Bruce and family.”
In addition, the organization took the opportunity to rescind another previous nomination – Worst Actress for Shelley Duvall in “The Shining.”
“As we recently mentioned in a Vulture Interview, extenuating circumstances also apply to Shelley Duvall in ‘The Shining.’ We have since discovered that Duvall’s performance was impacted by Stanley Kubrick’s treatment of her throughout the production. We would like to take this opportunity to rescind that nomination as well.”…

(15) JEOPARDY! Andrew Porter says tonight’s Jeopardy! contestants struck out on this one.

Category: Books and Authors
Answer: In “The Story of” this man, his friends include Too-Too, an owl, Chee-Chee, a monkey, & Dab-Dab, a duck.
No one could ask, “Who is Doctor Dolittle?”

(16) JUSTWATCH – TOP 10’S IN MARCH. JustWatch says these were the “Top 10 Sci-Fi Movies and TV Shows in the US in March 2022”.

Rank*	Movies	TV shows
1	Spider-Man: No Way Home	Severance
2	Dune	Halo
3	The Adam Project	Upload
4	After Yang	Resident Alien
5	Spider-Man: Far From Home	Doctor Who
6	Spider-Man: Homecoming	Raised by Wolves
7	Venom: Let There Be Carnage	Snowpiercer
8	Spider-Man	Star Trek: The Next Generation
9	Interstellar	The X-Files
10	The Matrix Resurrections	Battlestar Galactica

*Based on JustWatch popularity score. Genre data is sourced from themoviedb.org

(17) VIDEO OF THE DAY. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] In “Hancock Pitch Meeting” Ryan George explains that Hancock has a scene where one character destroys her house to prevent her husband from knowing she has super powers. But the producer is troubled by another scene where Hancock becomes enraged and violent after he is taunted. “How could that happen?” the producer asks. “That’s just not in Will Smith’s character!”

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, John King Tarpinian, Cora Buhlert, Alan Baumler, Scott Edelman, Michael J. Walsh, Dennis Howard, Dan Bloch, Andrew Porter, Michael Toman, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Pixel Scroll 11/8/20 I Know This Defies The Law Of Pixel Scrolling, But I Never Studied Law

Posted on November 8, 2020 by Mike Glyer

(1) GETTING PAID. Joby Dorr advises his fellow artists, “You Should Probably Be Charging More For Your Art”.

The truth is that a huge population of artists are severely undercharging for their work
Even as the discussion surrounding wealth inequality and fair pay reaches a cultural tipping point, a huge number of independent artists are allowing their services to be hired out at starvation wages.
At some point in your journey, every independent artist should write out the following simple equation:
What goes into the equation is your net income over a year, divided by the number of hours spent on producing and marketing your art.
What should come out of the other side of this equation is a per hour rate greater than minimum wage.
If you’ve never written out this equation for yourself, or you have and your per hour rate is below minimum wage, then please keep reading on. …

(2) CLASSIC SERIES REVIVED. [Item by Cora Buhlert.] A sword and sorcery magazine called Tales from the Magician’s Skull has announced that they will be publishing new Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories authorized by the estate of Fritz Leiber: I’m not sure how I feel about this, considering I’m a big fan of the originals. “All-New Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser Stories to be Published in Tales From The Magician’s Skull”.

… The first story in this new series will appear in issue #6 of Tales From The Magician’s Skull. Author Nathan Long has written a new short story starring Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. This entertaining tale finds the twain engaged in somewhat honest employment in the theatre trade, in order to pursue somewhat dishonest aims involving the sorcerer’s guild, with a somewhat incomplete plan that only Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser could devise.

(3) QUANTUM UNLEAPED. Australian Geoff Allshorn “ponder[s] the nature of ‘queer science fictions’ and our place as creators, audiences, and participants” in “From Queer to Eternity”.

… My background in science fiction demonstrates my own intersections of the personal with the political. In 1999, as the founder of a Melbourne-based LGBTI science fiction club called Spaced Out, I authored the club’s draft charter. Its goals included a recognition of diversity and a challenge to our science fictional friends and peers:
“We recognise that science fiction is a fun and popular medium and we no longer wish to be excluded from its fiction, art, cyberworlds or other creative forms…” Spaced Out, 1999.
I recall the energy and enthusiasm of the club’s early days: we published a number of newsletters and two fanzines, and our website won an Australian science fiction ‘Ditmar’ award. A professional author and other local luminaries became guests at our meetings while we, in turn, hosted panels at a Worldcon (Aussiecon 3). Our very existence, as both geeks and queers, identified us as a minority grouping within both communities; it was fun to confront double prejudice and it was interesting to see who supported us in either context.
…The irony of how life can come full-circle was emphasised to me in 2012, when the Australian Broadcasting Corporation commissioned a six-part series entitled, Outland, telling the story of an imaginary ‘gay science fiction fan club’ that was curiously located within the Australian city which really did have such a club. The series was advertised as being an exploration of inclusion but it excluded its real-life counterparts: its generic disclaimer dissociated its fictional characters from any real-life role models, and its fictional ‘otherness’ was further emphasised by its predominantly white male characters displaying very little real diversity. To me, its stories lacked the excitement of our real-life exploits in Spaced Out, where we had taken ‘one small step’ into groundbreaking territory and attempted to ‘boldly go where no fan had gone before’. Ultimately, Outland inverted media science fiction subtext: whereas LGBTQIA+ SF fans had traditionally sought to interpret ‘otherness’ as metaphoric queerness; we could now interpret our queerness as comprising metaphoric ‘otherness’.

(4) RIBBON BLOCK. “Medal by medal, Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s ‘stolen valor’ is laid bare” at The Underground Bunker.

…A 20-year military veteran, PickAnotherID was frustrated not only by Hubbard’s “stolen valor,” but also the incomplete and incorrect criticisms of the medals and ribbons that the Church of Scientology claimed were earned by the Scientology founder.
In the first part, Pick went over the Navy marksmanship awards, which have caused a lot of confusion over the years. And now, he’s on to the medals and ribbons that Scientology claimed for Hubbard when it delivered a photo of them to New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright for his 2011 feature story, “The Apostate.”
Bronzen Kruis
(Bronze Cross – Netherlands)
The Bronze Cross of the Kingdom of the Netherlands was instituted on 11 June 1940 by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands while residing in London during the German occupation of the Netherlands. The Bronze Cross is the third highest military decoration still being awarded by the Netherlands for bravery.
The medal itself is not shown in the picture provided by Scientology. It only includes the ribbon at position ‘R4’ of the ribbon block.
The Bronze Cross is a special award for military who behaved courageously or meritoriously in facing the enemy in service for the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It may also be awarded to civilians or foreign military who acted in special interest for the safety of the Netherlands. The cross, which corresponds to the British D.S.C., M.C., D.S.M., and M.M., can be given for a single outstanding act, as well as for bravery and enterprise in action over a period of time. It is received after a Royal Decree that is controlled by the Commissie Dapperheidonderscheidingen van het Ministerie van Defensie (Special Committee of the Ministry of Defence) which advises the Minister of Defence and the Dutch Queen. A number of American, Canadian, British and Polish ground and air military personnel have been awarded the Bronzen Kruis for service during WWII. The majority of those awarded to Americans were for actions during the failed Operation Market-Garden, 17-25 September 1944. Several members of the 508 Parachute Infantry Regiment involved in this operation received the Bronzen Kruis. A few were also awarded to Americans, as well as other nationalities, for actions during the the later liberation of the Netherlands.
Hubbard never participated in Market-Garden, or the liberation of the Netherlands. The Commissie Dapperheidonderscheidingen van het Ministerie van Defensie has not included his name among those who have received this award.
Verdict: Stolen Valor

(5) SMALL BUT MIGHTY. Plagiarism Today sorts out conflicting claims in “Hero Forge and the Controversy Over Miniature Copyright”.

…One site, Sky Castle Studios’ Hero Forge, allows users to design and perfect their own custom heroes (using pre-made assets provided by Hero Forge) and then either have Hero Forge send them a physical version of it or, if they prefer, they can download a digital version for printing on their own 3D printer.
However, with this new service came a new controversy: Copyright
The Hero Forge terms of service led many to believe that the site was laying claim to any and all creativity the user brought to the site. However, it’s something of a tempest in a teapot as Hero Forge’s terms of service really only impact a small subset of users and those would-be users likely came to the site with questionable intentions to start with.

(6) YOU DROOGS ARE WARNED. “‘Don’t read Clockwork Orange – it’s a foul farrago,’ wrote Burgess” – The Guardian previews a book of Anthony Burgess’ poetry, some appearing in print for the first time.

Previously unpublished love poems written by Anthony Burgess to each of his two wives have been discovered, along with a verse in which he dismissed A Clockwork Orange, the savage satire for which he is best known, as “a foul farrago”, urging people to read Shakespeare and Shelley instead.
They are among dozens of unknown poems that have been found, the majority in his vast archive held by the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, an educational charity in Manchester, where the writer was born in 1917.
One poem was found tucked into a book in Burgess’s library, others were on scraps of paper or card, including cigar-boxes and matchbooks. The discoveries will be included in a 450-page book to be published in December, entitled Anthony Burgess: Collected Poems, which brings together around 350 verses, of which a fifth are unpublished.
… Biswell said: “Most of his other books are non-violent and not about teenage boys. But, thanks to the popularity of the film, people were always asking him about A Clockwork Orange.” The previously unpublished poetry includes A Sonnet for the Emery Collegiate Institute, a verse letter urging students not to read that novel: “Advice: don’t read/ A Clockwork Orange – it’s a foul farrago/ Of made-up words that bite and bash and bleed./ I’ve written better books… So have other men, indeed./ Read Hamlet, Shelley, Keats, Doctor Zhivago.”

(7) A TIMELORD IN RETIREMENT. In The Guardian: “Tom Baker: ‘Being loved pleases me very much indeed'”. Registration required to read full interview.

“I miss Waitrose terribly,” Tom Baker says in those unmistakable tones. “And Boots, and the places I used to go without realising how dependent I was on them.”
The year of coronavirus is treating the veteran actor well on the whole, he explains, “because I live in the country and have a garden and some woodland and a cat and a wife”. But there is a melancholy and a reminder of his own mortality when he does venture out. “When my wife and I go for a spin, I drive to Tenterden [in Kent] and – we don’t sob exactly – but it gets solemn as we catch a glimpse of the hardware store, and Boots, and Waitrose, and then we turn round and come home again. Then I go down to the paradise of my woods and think: ‘Well, eventually it will pass.’ Another voice, of course, says: ‘Yes, but by then you’ll be gone.’”

The cause of death was not immediately announced. Trebek revealed in March 2019 he had been diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, triggering an outpouring of support and well wishes at the time.

While Trebek did make a few minor genre acting appearances (like, delivering one line as a Man in Black on an X-Files episode), he was far more profoundly connected to sff through the many fans who competed on his game show over the years. For example, here is a link to Part I of Steven H Silver’s “A Fan in Jeopardy!“ from File 770 #134 (March 2000).

(9) MEDIA ANNIVERSARY.

1975 – Forty-five years ago this weekend, the pilot film for the Wonder Woman series (The New Adventures of Wonder Woman after the first season) aired to quite splendid ratings.. It was called The New Original Wonder Woman and starred Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman/Diana Prince, Lyle Waggoner as in the roles of Steve Trevor Sr. & Steve Trevor Jr., and Debra Winger as Drusilla/Wonder Girl. It was the second Wonder Woman film as Cathy Lee Crosby had been her in one a year earlier that did poorly in the ratings. This series would last for three seasons with the first being on ABC and the last two on CBS. In all, sixty episodes including the film were produced.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]

Born November 8, 1847 – Bram Stoker. Famous for Dracula, which however accurately or inaccurately based on legend has itself become legendary. Four other novels, forty shorter stories. Outside our field, assistant to Sir Henry Irving; theater manager. (Died 1912) [JH]
Born November 8, 1898 — Katharine Mary Briggs. British folklorist and author who wrote A Dictionary of Fairies: Hobgoblins, Brownies, Bogies, and Other Supernatural Creatures , and the four-volume Dictionary of British Folk-Tales in the English Language, and the Kate Crackernuts novel. Her The Anatomy of Puck: An Examination of Fairy Beliefs among Shakespeare’s Contemporaries and Successors is fascinating read. (Died 1980.) (CE)
Born November 8, 1914 — Norman Lloyd, 106. Yes, he’s really that old. His best remembered genre role was as Dr. Isaac Mentnor on the Seven Days series. He’s been on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Get Smart! in the form of the Nude Bomb filmand The Twilight Zone, and in a fair of horror films from The Dark Secret of Harvest Home to The Scare. (CE)
Born November 8, 1922 – Sol Dember. A score of covers. Here is the Mar 58 Galaxy. Here is the Jul 61 If. Here is the Aug 63 Worlds of Tomorrow. Here is the Nov 68 Galaxy. (Died 2011) [JH]
Born November 8, 1932 — Ben Bova, 88. He’s the author of more than one hundred twenty fiction and nonfiction books. He won six Hugo Awards as editor of Analog, along with once being editorial director at Omni. Hell, he even had the thankless job of SFWA President. (Just kidding. I think.) I couldn’t hope to summarize his literary history so I’ll single out his Grand Tour series that though it’s uneven as overall it’s splendid hard sf, as well as his Best of Bova short story collections put out recently in three volumes on Baen. What’s your favorite works by him? (CE)
Born November 8, 1936 – Edward Gibson, Ph.D., 84. Science pilot of Skylab 4. Two novels. Edited The Great Adventure, nonfiction by astronauts, cosmonauts. Humboldt Foundation prize. Two honorary doctorates. U.S. Astronauts Hall of Fame. [JH]
Born November 8, 1952 — Alfre Woodard, 68. I remember her best from Star Trek: First Contact where she was Lily Sloane, Zefram Cochrane’s assistant. She was also Grace Cooley in Scrooged, and polishing her SJW creds, she once voiced Maisie the Cat in The Brave Little Toaster Goes to School. And yes, I know she’s portrayed a character in Marvel Universe. I just like the obscure roles. (CE)
Born November 8, 1954 – Sir Kazuo Ishiguro, 66. Author, jazz composer. Three novels for us; five others, nine shorter stories, five screenplays, a dozen songs (with Jim Tomlinson). Holtby, Whitbread, Booker Prizes. Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Letters. Nobel Prize in Literature. Order of the Rising Sun. [JH]
Born November 8, 1955 — Jeffrey Ford, 65. Winner of seven World Fantasy Awards including for The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant and Other Stories, an excellent collection, and The Shadow Year which in turn is an expansion of “The Botch Town”, a novella that also won a WFA. His Nebula winning novelette, “The Empire of Ice Cream”, can be heard here. Did you know that he has written over one hundred and thirty short stories? A wide selection of his writing are available at the usual digital suspects. (CE)
Born November 8, 1956 — Richard Curtis, 64. One of Britain’s most successful comedy screenwriters, he’s making the Birthday List for writing “Vincent and the Doctor”, a most excellent Eleventh Doctor story. He was also the writer of Roald Dahl’s Esio Trot which isn’t really genre but it’s Roald Dahl which sort of make it genre adjacent. And he directed Blackadder which certainly should count as genre.(CE)
Born November 8, 1978 – Kali Wallace, Ph.D., 42. Four novels, a dozen shorter stories. Interviewed in Lightspeed. Photographer, though she depreciates her ability. “I now live in southern California. I do miss having seasons.” [JH]
Born November 8, 1982 – Lauren Oliver, 38. A dozen novels, four novellas. Phi Beta Kappa at Univ. Chicago. Wrote her first book on a BlackBerry during subway trips. NY Times Best Seller. Has read Austen, Brontë, Hemingway, Huxley, James, Joyce, and thirty Agatha Christie novels. [JH]

(11) COMICS SECTION.

The Far Side shows the police report after a well-known cartoon hero has left the scene.
The River of Lost Souls by Isabel Greenberg is a Guardian Graphic Story from 2013.

(12) COMICS IN THE DAYS OF THE TWO GERMANIES. Cora Buhlert has an article about East and West German comics at Galactic Journey: “[October 28, 1965] Knights, Adventurers And Anthropomorphic Animals: Comics In East And West Germany”.

…Inspired by the success of the Disney comics, in 1953 West German artist Rolf Kauka created his own comic magazine called Till Eulenspiegel, named after a popular trickster character from German legend. However, a pair of clever foxes named Fix and Foxi quickly became the most popular characters and in 1955, the magazine was retitled as Fix und Foxi. The two foxes quickly adopted a whole menagerie of animal friends such as the wolf Lupo and his cousin Lupinchen, the mole Pauli and the sister Paulinchen, the raven Knox, the hare Hops, the hedgehog Stops and the mouse Mausi. Other characters to appear in the magazine are “Tom and Klein Biberherz” (Little Beaverheart), a cowboy character and his indigenous friend, and “Mischa im Weltraum” (Mischa in Outer Space), a humorous science fiction comic. Those who have read the Archie comics will find that Mischa looks very familiar.

(13) WAR AND FANTASY. Paul Weimer serves up “Microreview: Legacy of Ash by Matthew Ward” at Nerds of a Feather.

…Expanding on that, the physical conflicts, battles and otherwise, is where a lot of the story strength is spent and spent well. With the theme of a impending invasion by the neighboting, dominant Empire and the internal conflict within the Republic, complete with insurgency, and the very violent, Renaissance level world means that there are action sequences that run from duels in a street all the way to set piece battles. The latter is particularly well done, showing the ebb and flow of war and its fortunes, flaws and follies. The pulse pounding roar of physical action is where the narrative kicks into overdrive, and all of the point of view characters (and in at least one case very unexpectedly) get their turns to shine, or at least get dunked in the experience. War is hell, and this book makes no bones about it and secondary characters often have a shockingly short but realistic life expectancy.

(14) POWERED BY A TARDIGRADE? No, but it should be: “Scientists 3D print microscopic Star Trek spaceship that moves on its own” — CNN has a picture.

…The miniature Voyager, which measures 15 micrometers (0.015 millimeters) long, is part of a project researchers at Leiden University conducted to understand how shape affects the motion and interactions of microswimmers.
Microswimmers are small particles that can move through liquid on their own by interacting with their environment through chemical reactions. The platinum coating on the microswimmers reacts to a hydrogen peroxide solution they are placed in, and that propels them through the liquid.
“By studying synthetic microswimmers, we would like to understand biological microswimmers,” Samia Ouhajji, one of the study’s authors, told CNN. “This understanding could aid in developing new drug delivery vehicles; for example, microrobots that swim autonomously and deliver drugs at the desired location in the human body.”

(15) THE FINISHED LINE. Adri Joy gives Nerds of a Feather readers her assessment in “Microreview [book]: Master of Poisons by Andrea Hairston”.

Master of Poisons took me approximately forever to read. Very little of that is the book’s fault: while Andrea Hairston’s writing style does require more attention than some, packing a great deal of worldbuilding and information into deceptively simple but poetic prose, its certainly no more than I would expect to give to an author of this calibre. It’s not like Master of Poisons doesn’t open with some super intriguing stuff: right off the bat, we’ve got poison deserts, scheming advisors, a deceptively confident first protagonist and a plucky young second one all conspiring to draw me in….

(16) WAYS INDIE BOOKSTORES ARE SURVIVING. On the CBS Sunday Morning news today: “Independent booksellers write a new chapter during COVID-19”.

The Strand Book Store is a New York institution, with four floors of books, and 93 years of tradition. But while it survived a Great Depression, World War II, 9/11 and Amazon, it has struggled during the era of COVID-19. New Yorker contributor Kelefa Sanneh talks with the Strand’s owners, and with the owners of EyeSeeMe, an African-American children’s bookstore in St. Louis, about how independent booksellers are finding ways to cope during the coronavirus pandemic, and about the community of readers that wants them to survive.

(17) MORE TO COME. Clarion West is hosting several more online workshops before the end of 2020, ranging in price from free to $325.

Thursday, November 12 at 4:00 p.m. PDT: Submission Tools with Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam
You’ve written, finished, and edited your short story. What now? Join prolific submitter and rejection expert Bonnie Jo Stufflebeam for a two-hour seminar on the submissions process: formatting, finding markets, writing cover letters, tracking submissions, managing acceptances and rejections, and exploring reprints.

Saturday, November 14 at 10:00 a.m. PST: Interactive Fiction with E. Lily Yu
Award-winning author and narrative designer E. Lily Yu discusses the intricacies, opportunities, complications, and markets for interactive fiction and other branching narratives. How do we bring playfulness? What are the types of nonlinear narrative, and how do we use them? During this class, you’ll outline, implement, and workshop your own Twine game. Basic technical knowledge of how to edit Twine or a Wikipedia article required.
Saturday, November 14 at 12:00 p.m. PDT : Fix It, Jesus! With LP Kindred
Repurposing the Self, Clichés, Tropes, and Unexamined Bias for New Story – LP Kindred walks you through how to fix these biases in an interactive workshop!
Sunday, November 15 at 12:00 p.m. PDT: Intro to Freelance Video Game Writing with Whitney “Strix” Beltrán
Acquiring and creating your first pieces of freelance work: what does that entail? This course focuses on the creative and logistical aspects of freelance game work. Fee structures and appropriate pay will be taught in a later workshop.
Friday, November 20 – Sunday, November 22: Writing the Other Weekend Intensive: Quick & Clean with Nisi Shawl and Tempest Bradford
Nisi Shawl and K. Tempest Bradford lead this weekend-long workshop on creating more compelling, well-rounded characters whose identities and cultural experiences are unlike the author’s own, from gender to ethnicity, sexuality to socioeconomic class. Avoid pitfalls of tokenism and appropriation while building your confidence to write the lives of characters with respect and panache.
Sunday, Nov 29, 10:00 a.m. Pacific: Negritude in the 6th Dimension: An Afrofuturist Excursion
A panelshop in partnership with Voodoonauts
The Voodoonauts (Yvette Lisa Ndlovu, Shingai Njeri Kagunda, LP Kindred, and Hugh “H.D.” Hunter) host a panel and break-out workshop sessions to explore time and craft through a Black Indigenous lens.

(18) SECOND FOUNDATION OF THE WEB. “How Discord (somewhat accidentally) invented the future of the internet” at Protocol.

…Eventually, a lot of those gamers realized something. They wanted to talk to their gaming friends even when they weren’t in a game, and they wanted to talk about things other than games. Their gaming friends were their real friends. As luck would have it, in early 2015, a new tool called Discord showed up on the market. Its tagline was not subtle: “It’s time to ditch Skype and TeamSpeak.” It had text chat, which was cool, but mostly it did voice chat better than anybody else.
Early users set up private servers for their friends to play together, and a few enterprising ones set up public ones, looking for new gamer buds. “I don’t have a lot of IRL friends that play games,” one Discord user, who goes by Mikeyy on the platform, told me. “So when I played Overwatch, I started my first community … to play games with anyone on the internet. You’d play a couple of games with someone, and then you’re like, ‘Hey, cool, what’s your Discord?'”
Fast-forward a few years, and Discord is at the center of the gaming universe. It has more than 100 million monthly active users, in millions of communities for every game and player imaginable. Its largest servers have millions of members. Discord’s slowly building a business around all that popularity, too, and is now undergoing a big pivot: It’s pushing to turn the platform into a communication tool not just for gamers, but for everyone from study groups to sneakerheads to gardening enthusiasts. Five years in, Discord’s just now realizing it may have stumbled into something like the future of the internet. Almost by accident….

(19) DEEP PURPLE STATE. In the Washington Post, Steven Zeitchik says that some in Hollywood have decided that with the pandemic and the election we need soothing entertainment, so Barney the dinosaur is coming back in a remake! “Hollywood wants to put you to sleep”

… For much of this entertainment century, Hollywood has had a clear objective: work viewers into as much of a lather as possible. The highest-grossing movies of all time are “Avengers: Endgame” and “Avatar. The most-watched pay-cable show of this era is “Game of Thrones.” All three offer tense standoffs, climactic battle scenes and other high-burn elements. They try to make us sweat.
Such content, researchers have found, can leave a deep mark. A study from Linder College in Oregon revealed that clips from “aggressive” movies activate mental aggression, while research conducted by University College London indicated that action movies can even take a toll on the cardiac muscle.
So modern entertainment leaders have tried another way. Executives at ViacomCBS streaming service Pluto TV licensed a well of content from Ross, the ultimate soothe-meister, and created a channel devoted to him. If you want to see happy little trees spring up everywhere — all 380 episodes of them — they are now available on the platform.

[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, Michael Toman, Mike Kennedy, John Hertz, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, Contrarius, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to Fiel 770 contributing editor of the day Jack Lint.]

Pixel Scroll 4/25/19 When Other Pixels Have Been Fifthgot, Ours Will Still Scroll Hot

Posted on April 25, 2019 by Mike Glyer

(1) A CLOCKWORK REWIND. After Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World (1932), he wrote a book of essays about issues raised in the novel, Brave New World Revisited (1958). Anthony Burgess planned to do the same for his novel A Clockwork Orange (1962) in A Clockwork Condition. Burgess evidently decided he was a better novelist than a philosopher and never published his 200-page typescript, which now has been rediscovered by The Anthony Burgess Foundation: “Unseen Clockwork Orange ‘follow-up’ by Anthony Burgess unearthed”.

A previously unseen manuscript for a follow-up to writer Anthony Burgess’s novel A Clockwork Orange has been unearthed in his archive.
A Clockwork Condition, which runs to 200 pages, is a collection of Burgess’ thoughts on the human condition and develops the themes from his 1962 book.
The novel told the story of the state’s attempt to cure a teenage delinquent.
The unfinished non-fiction follow-up is described as “part philosophical reflection and part autobiography”….
He then published a short autobiographical novel tackling some of the same themes, The Clockwork Testament, in 1974.

On Friday, the Design Museum in London launches a major Stanley Kubrick exhibition, which will include material from his Clockwork Orange film.

(2) COSPLAY: A HISTORY. Andrew Liptak has one on the way to the press says SYFY Wire. “First Look: Cosplay expert Andrew Liptak examines fandom fashion in Cosplay: A History”.

Cosplay: A History is a deluxe upcoming release from Saga Press celebrating the colorful kingdom of cosplay being compiled by writer/historian Andrew Liptak…
Inspiration to craft this upcoming book came from his interest in the history of the 501st Legion. At the same time, he was working closely with The Verge colleague Bryan Bishop and realized that costumers working today occupy a fascinating place between the intersection of fandom, entertainment, and technology.

Liptak’s own press release says –

Seth Fishman at the Gernert Company brokered the deal with Joe Monti of Saga Press. The initial goal as it stands right now is to have it turned in by next March, with it to hit stores in 2021. I’ll be doing quite a bit of research and writing in the coming months, and expect to see more about cosplay as I write.

The book is going to cover the broad history of cosplay and the state of the field. I’m looking at a lot of things: renaissance fairs, masquerade balls at science fiction conventions, groups like the 501st Legion, 405th Infantry Division, historical reenactors, protestors, and more.

The goal is to talk about why people dress up in costumes, and how they interact with the story that they’re reimagining. It’s a wonderful popular culture phenomenon, and there’s a lot to delve into with the intersections of fandom, the making and entertainment communities, and technology.

(3) SWAMP THING TEASER. A new original series DC Universe Swamp Thing premieres May 31.

SWAMP THING follows Abby Arcane as she investigates what seems to be a deadly swamp-born virus in a small town in Louisiana but soon discovers that the swamp holds mystical and terrifying secrets. When unexplainable and chilling horrors emerge from the murky marsh, no one is safe. Based on the DC characters originally written and drawn by Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson.

(4) SF CONCATENATION. The summer edition of the SF2 Concatenation is now up, with its seasonal summary of SF news as well as a survey of the primary research journals, for science philes, plus forthcoming SF/F and non-fiction book releases from the major British Isles SF imprints.

And the regular articles include film charts and Gaia for this season, another in the series of scientist-turned-SF-authors inspiring scientists, a swathe of standalone fiction and non-fiction reviews. The next seasonal edition will appear in September.

(5) PACKET ITEM AVAILABLE. Bogi Takács has released eir Hugo Voter’s Packet for Best Fan Writer – the material is at this link: “Hugo award voter packet 2019 (works from 2018)”.

I successfully produced my Hugo award voter packet! ….I hope. It features some highlights from 2018, but I had a lot more stuff in 2018, so please feel free to browse around.
The packet only has reviews and other forms of fan writing, because it is for the Fan Writer category. So no original fiction or poetry!…

(6) TICKETS TO RIDE. There’s an Omaze fundraiser for The Planetary Society — “Win a One-of-a-Kind 1958 VW® Bug Powered by Tesla® Batteries”. Buy tickets for a chance to win at the link.

Score a rare, custom Zelectric 1958 Classic VW Bug with an electric motor and Tesla batteries (the only one of its kind!)
Enjoy 102 HP thanks to its electric motor and a nearly 100 mile range battery that’ll keep you moving
Rock this car’s classic style and upgraded perks like new leather seats, high-quality flooring, ragtop sunroof and more
Support The Planetary Society’s work to advance space science and exploration

(7) NICK TREK. The Hollywood Reporter informs fans — “‘Star Trek’ Animated Series Gets Green Light at Nickelodeon”.

The cable network has given a series order to an animated Trek show from Emmy-winning writers Kevin and Dan Hageman and Star Trek franchise captain Alex Kurtzman. The untitled, CG-animated series will follow a group of teenagers who discover a derelict Starfleet ship and use it to search for adventure, meaning and salvation.

(8) MORE ON MCINTYRE. Kate Schaefer sent a roundup of time-sensitive Vonda McIntyre news.

Vonda N. McIntyre’s memorial will be held Sunday afternoon on June 9 at The Mountaineers Goodman Auditorium at 7700 Sand Point Way NE in Seattle, Washington.
Doors will open at 1:45, an event will start at 2:30, and the memorial will end at 4:30pm.
After short introductory remarks, we’ll have a microphone to pass around so that folks can share brief reminiscences of Vonda.
Further information about the memorial will be posted on Vonda’s CaringBridge page at https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/vondanmcintyre/journal.

Also — Jeanne Gomoll and Stephanie Ann Smith are still collecting memories of Vonda for a tribute book to be distributed both as a free electronic document and as a print-on-demand physical book. Send your memories to Jeanne at [email protected] before May 11.

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Born April 25, 1897 — Fletcher Pratt. Pratt is best known for his collaborations with de Camp, the most well-known of which is the Harold Shea series which is collected as The Complete Enchanter. His solo fantasy novels The Well of the Unicorn and The Blue Star are also superb. Pratt established the literary dining club known as the Trap Door Spiders in 1944. The club would later fictionalized as the Black Widowers in a series of mystery stories by Asimov. Pratt would be fictionalized in one story, “To the Barest”, as the Widowers’ founder, Ralph Ottur. (Died 1956.)
Born April 25, 1925 — Richard Deming. Ok, I think that all of the Man from U.N.C.L.E. novellas, or in this case the Girl from U.N.C.L.E. novellas, in the digest-sized Man from U.N.C.L.E. Magazine, were listed under the house name of Robert Hart Davis. Deming was only one of a very long list of writers (I know of Richard Curtis, Richard Deming, I. G. Edmonds, John Jakes, Frank Belknap Long, Dennis Lynds, Talmage Powell, Bill Pronzini, Charles Ventura and Harry Whittington) that were the writers who penned novellas in the twin U.N.C.L.E. series. (Died 1983.)
Born April 25, 1929 — Robert A. Collins. Scholar of science fiction who founded the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts. Editor of the Fantasy Newsletter & Fantasy Review from 1978 to 1987, and editor of the IAFA Newsletter from 1988 to 1993. Editor, The Scope of the Fantastic: Selected Essays from the First International Conference on the Fantastic in Literature and Film and Modes of the Fantastic: Selected Essays from the Twelfth Annual International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts. (Died 2009.)
Born April 25, 1939 — Rex Miller. Horror writer with a hand in many pies, bloody ones at that. (Sorry couldn’t resist.) The Chaingang series featured Daniel Bunkowski, a half-ton killing-machine. Definitely genre. He contributed to some thirty anthologies including Hotter Blood: More Tales of Erotic Horror, Frankenstein: The Monster Wakes, Dick Tracy: The Secret Files and The Crow: Shattered Lives and Broken Dreams. (Died 2005.)
Born April 25, 1950 — Peter Jurasik, 69. Ambassador Londo Mollari on Babylon 5 who would be Emperor one day and die for his sins. (Yes spoiler.) He has also very short genre credits other than Babylon 5 — Doctor Oberon Geiger for several episodes on Sliders and Crom, the timid and pudgy compound interest program, in the Tron film.
Born April 25, 1952 — Peter Lauritson, 67. Long involved with the Trek franchise starting with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. He became the producer of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and supervising producer for Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise. He directed three episodes of those series, including the Hugo Award-winning “The Inner Light”, as well as being second unit director for two Star Trek films.
Born April 25, 1969 — Gina Torres, 50. The first thing I remember seeing her in was Cleopatra 2525 where she was Helen ‘Hel’ Carter. Her first genre was in the M.A.N.T.I.S. pilot as Dr. Amy Ellis, and she actually was in The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions as a character named Cas but I’ll frankly admit I remember almost nothing of those films. She’s had a number of DC voice roles including a recurring Justice League Unlimited run as Vixen / Mari McCabe. And, of course, Zoe in the Firefly verse. Lastly anyone remember her on the Angel series as Jasmine?

(10) ACONYTE. Asmodee is a leading global games publisher and distributor. Its game brands include Catan, Ticket to Ride, Pandemic, Arkham Horror, and Legend of the Five Rings. More recent hits have included the innovative fantasy card game KeyForge and the co-operative zombie survival missions of Dead of Winter.

Asmodee Entertainment has created their own fiction imprint — Aconyte, it will be publishing novels based on many of Asmodee’s best game properties. Aconyte are also actively pursuing licenses for third-party tie-in fiction, with the first of these at the contract stage. Aconyte will start a monthly publication schedule from early summer 2020, producing paperbacks and ebooks for the US, UK and export trade.

To helm the imprint, Asmodee has appointed Marc Gascoigne, lately publisher & MD of award-winning global scifi imprint Angry Robot. He’s hired assistant editor, Lottie Llewelyn-Wells, and publishing coordinator, Nick Tyler, to join him in new offices in Nottingham.

(11) PEAK GEEK. Vox suspects “Geek culture may never again be as all-consuming as it is right now”. “Avengers: Endgame and Game of Thrones make this moment feel like a series finale for geek pop culture too.”

…But if this moment in pop culture started around 10 years ago, it’s coming to some sort of peak now, as two massively beloved pop culture properties reach endpoints. And there’s a definite finality to it. Here’s the curious thing about this moment: So much of this geek culture apotheosis revolves around the question of which of our favorite fictional characters are going to die. Call it geekpocalypse now….

(12) PAST ITS PEAK. From Wisecrack — “Harry Potter & The Plague of Twitter: Why JK Rowling Should Leave Harry Alone.”

JK Rowling has been regularly updating the Harry Potter lore; not through more books, not through movies, but through twitter. Fans voraciously consume extra-textual canon on works like Harry Potter, Star Wars and much more. But does this desire for an all-encompassing knowledge of how fictional worlds tell us something about our own anxieties? In this Wisecrack Edition, we’ll dive in to the works of philosopher Martin Heidegger to discover why people are so consumed by the desire to understand the nitty gritty details of fictional worlds, and to how it reflects an essential element of our humanity.

(13) SHELVES FULL OF BOOKS. Laura Lee expounds on “Women’s Bookshelves and Clutter”.

I don’t have strong feelings about Marie Kondo and her theories of decluttering. I know a number of people who have found her “does this object spark joy” way of relating to stuff to be meaningful and if feeling overwhelmed by too many possessions is an issue for you then it might be just what the doctor ordered. I have no problem with Kondo giving this advice, take it or leave it…
I did, however, have some opinions on the Electric Lit article defending Kondo and decrying “bookishness.” The background is that in an episode of Kondo’s TV series she suggested that people get rid of books that do not “spark joy” and book lovers began to write think pieces about whether or not books are clutter. Some people had strong feelings on the subject.
Book buying, and book writing, have long been feminine activities. As I have pointed out here a number of times, in Victorian England female authors outsold their male counterparts, but their works were not deemed worthy of serious study and the memory of many once influential women has not found its way down to us. (A number of scholars are now trying to recover these “lost” works and bring them to our attention.) Books by women or which women appreciated have consistently been written off as fluffy, sentimental, non-intellectual and unimportant. If Egginton is correct, women were not only major consumers of popular literature, they were also creating “serious” libraries and archives to rival men’s, but their efforts, like their books, were denigrated.
It is interesting then to see a feminist writer contrasting the masculine “highly discriminating form of curated library collection” with the feminine “highly personalized, almost fannish, engagement with books.” Then following this with an argument that the feminized form of consumption led to the emotional engagement with middlebrow literature that book blogs now celebrate.
…Is it at all possible a century of being judged by the cleanliness of their homes, being told that this was more important than their intellects, and that their taste in literature is trivial might have colored their reactions to an authority suggesting their books might be clutter?

(14) COMING TO A BOIL. Here’s the new poster for GeyserCon, the 40th New Zealand National Convention happening in another six weeks:

(15) OUR MARCHING ORDERS. In “Timothy’s Hugo Picks”, Timothy the Talking Cat’s recommendations bear all the marks of a slate – because he put them there.

I’m going to come right out and say it: this is a slate. Vote for each of these in this order or else.

(16) NEUTRON LONGEVITY. Nature reports “Physicists close in on neutron puzzle” [PDF file].

Physicists are drawing nearer to answering a long-standing mystery of the Universe: how long a neutron lives. Neutrons are electrically neutral particles the nucleus of atoms.
Some neutrons are not bound up in atoms; these free-floating neutrons decay radioactively into other particles in minutes. But physicists can’t agree on precisely how long it takes a neutron to die. Using one laboratory approach, they measure the average neutron lifetime as 14 minutes 39 seconds. Using a different approach, they get 8 seconds longer!
Pinpointing the lifetime of a neutron is important for understanding how much hydrogen, helium and other light elements formed in the first few minutes after the Universe was born 13.8 billion years ago.

(17) BEEN TO SEE THE DRAGON. Doctor Science is right, there aren’t too many eyewitness accounts like this — “A first-hand description of a dragon”.

The observations were made by the Chinese scholar Xie Zhaozhe (1567–1624)…
Obviously this account is extremely useful for writers of fantasy and science fiction. I don’t know if the (vast) Chinese literature contains any other first-person accounts of dragons, much less ones recorded by such a careful and specific observer. I’m pretty sure there are no good first-person descriptions from the other end of Eurasia.
Then there’s the question of what Xie Zhaozhe “actually” saw….

(18) BEHIND THE SCENES WITH HALDEMAN. The Partially Examined Life podcast talks to one of the field’s greats: “Constellary Tales #7: Interview with Author Joe Haldeman”.

SFWA Grand Master Joe Haldeman takes Brian and Ken behind the scenes of his storied career in an exclusive interview. Among other conversation topics…

How “I of Newton” went from the page to The Twilight Zone
The unusual origins of Hugo Award–winning short story “Tricentennial”
Getting The Forever War published (and bootlegging the stage production)
Details about Joe’s new novel in the works (!!!)

(19) MAD, I TELL YOU. A TED-Ed presentation written and narrated by Silvia Moreno-Garcia: “Titan of terror: the dark imagination of H.P. Lovecraft.”

Dive into the stories of horror savant H.P. Lovecraft, whose fantastical tales, such as “The Call of Cthulhu,” created a new era of Gothic horror
Arcane books of forbidden lore, disturbing secrets in the family bloodline, and terrors so unspeakable the very thought of them might drive you mad. These have become standard elements in modern horror stories. But they were largely popularized by a single author: H.P. Lovecraft, whose name has become synonymous with the terror he inspired. Silvia Moreno-García dissects the “Lovecraftian” legacy.

[Thanks to Martin Morse Wooster, Paul Weimer, Carl Slaughter, Andrew Liptak, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Andrew Porter, JJ, Mlex, Cat Eldridge, ULTRAGOTHA, Doctor Science, Alan Baumler, Mike Kennedy, John King Tarpinian, John A Arkansawyer, and Chip Hitchcock for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew.]

Pixel Scroll 10/15/16 Go Hang A Pixel, I’m A Lasagna Scroll.

Posted on October 15, 2016 by Mike Glyer

(1) SPACE REMAINS THE FINAL FRONTIER. Howard Tayler is right – pass along the dream.

If it was "coming soon" in 1988, it's time to refresh the display and say "these are from a future we abandoned, kids. Do better than us!"

— Howard Tayler (@howardtayler) October 14, 2016

(2) A CENTURY OF CARL SLAUGHTER. Adding together all the interviews, book features, series features, author profiles, essays, and news items he’s written for File 770, today I published Carl’s 99th and 100th submissions. I’m grateful he’s been so generous with his talent here.

(3) AGENT SECRETS. Liana Brooks tells aspiring writers when is “The Best Time To Query”.

These are just the tidbits that everyone in the industry takes for granted and assumes everyone knows.

1 – Literary agents close for several months of the year so always check their websites to see if they are open to queries right now.

2 – Summer is con season and, on Fridays, the agents and editors leave work early. If your deadline falls on a Friday, make sure the manuscript gets in early.

3 – Between Thanksgiving (American) and Groundhog’s Day, publishing is slow and full of NO. Everyone wants to clear their desk for the new year and empty their inboxes so agents (and editors) are quicker to say no this time of year.

That means February is one of the best times to query. Everyone is back from their holidays. Everyone is over their “no booze” New Year’s Resolution. Everyone is excited about the coming spring and in the mood to say YES!

(4) ATWOOD DISAPPROVES DYLAN WIN. Margaret Atwood, in England to receive the PEN Pinter Prize, had this exchange with her Guardian interviewer:

On Thursday, just as I am saying goodbye to Margaret Atwood at the end of our interview, I get a text message. “Oh,” I say. “Bob Dylan’s won the Nobel prize.” She is about to have her photograph taken, and is arranging a rakish grey felt hat atop her steely curls. She looks at me, opens her mouth very slightly, and widens her eyes. They are the faintly unrealistic blue of a Patagonian glacier.

“For what?” she says, aspirating the word “what” with devastating effect.

If Atwood herself occasionally checks her phone for missed calls from Stockholm on such mornings, she does not admit to it; in any case, fellow Canadian Alice Munro’s victory in 2013, commemorated with a generous tribute by Atwood in this paper, will have queered that particular pitch for some years to come.

(5) BUT HOW DID THIS NOT PREVENT DYLAN FROM WINNING THE NOBEL PRIZE? Though it may be the reason it took so long.

(6) BOB WEINBERG MEMORIAL. Steven H Silver sent this report about the celebration of the late Robert Weinberg, who passed away September 25.

A memorial party was held for Bob Weinberg today at the Orland Park (IL) Civic Center from 12:00-4:30. There were about 70 people attending. Doug Ellis and others spoke about their relationship with Bob. Attached is a picture showing Phyllis and Alex Eisenstein, Tina Jens, Randy Broecker, and Richard Chwedyk. Images of Bob and his art collection were shown on a screen and some of Bob’s jigsaw puzzles were available for people to work on or take home.

(7) AVOIDING ANTISOCIAL MEDIA. Kevin Hearne is taking a break from Twitter and Facebook, however, he still recommends Instagram and imzy.

I am currently hiding from the icky people of the world. Many of them are on Twitter, so I’ve taken a Twitter break until after the election. Quite a few are also on Facebook so I’ve stopped hanging around there too: It’s like people are just waiting for you to show up so they can poot in your face. I’ve noticed that if I spend any time on either platform my mood turns sour like milk from four months ago, and I’d rather not let that negativity poison my days.

I am, however, still posting happy pictures on Instagram, if you’d like to follow me there: I’m @kevin_hearne. And I’m on imzy as well. If you’d like to follow me there & become part of that community, click on this link, ask for an invitation, and I’ll approve it quick as I can.

Both Instagram and imzy, I have found, are poot-free.

(8) ADD THESE TO MOUNT TBR. Open Culture has a list of five for us: “A Clockwork Orange Author Anthony Burgess Lists His Five Favorite Dystopian Novels: Orwell’s 1984, Huxley’s Island & More”.

Before John Stuart Mill coined the word “dystopia” in 1868, pessimistic post-Enlightenment thinker Jeremy Bentham created an earlier, perhaps even scarier, word, “cacotopia,” the “imagined seat of the worst government.” This was the term favored by Anthony Burgess, author of one of the most unsettling dystopian novels of the last century, A Clockwork Orange. Depicting a chaotic future England filled with extreme criminal violence and an unnerving government solution, the novel can be read as either, writes Ted Gioia, “a look into the morality of an individual, or as an inquiry into the morality of the State.” It seems to me that this dual focus marks a central feature of much successful dystopian fiction: despite its thoroughly grim and pessimistic nature, the best representatives of the genre present us with human characters who have some agency, however limited, and who can choose to revolt from the oppressive conditions (and usually fail in the attempt) or to fully acquiesce and remain complicit.

(9) STEAMING ALONG. Gail Carriger includes lots of photos with “Con Report ~ Fun at Gaslight Gathering in San Diego”.

I really wish this con were closer to me, I would go every year if I could. It was like meeting old friends for the first time (shout out to Madame Askew and The Grand Arbiter). Tea Dueling is my new favorite sport of all time and everyone should do it everywhere forever.

(10) RINGS. From NPR: “Spin To Survive: How ‘Saturn On Steroids’ Keeps From Self-Destructing”. The accompanying astronomical art is by Ron Miller.

In 2007, data showed that a young star about 400 light years away from our solar system was blinking. It was being covered, uncovered and covered again in what astronomers call a “series of complex eclipses.”

The eclipses told astronomers that something was orbiting the young star, and that the something was very large….

…In 2012, [Eric Mamajek] and colleagues published a paper announcing what they thought was causing what he calls “the weird eclipse.”

It was an enormous ring system swirling around a planet.

“This planet is much larger than Jupiter or Saturn, and its ring system is roughly 200 times larger than Saturn’s rings are today,” Mamajek said at the time….

(11) FRANCE IN 2023. The fans behind the Worldcon in France bid are holding an awareness meeting at Utopiales on October 29.

(12) THE BEST THINGS IN LIFE ARE FREE. Terry Bisson’s classic “Bears Discover Fire” is available as a free read at Lightspeed Magazine.

“What’s this I hear about bears discovering fire?” she said on Tuesday. “It’s true,” I told her as I combed her long white hair with the shell comb Wallace had brought her from Florida. Monday there had been a story in the Louisville Courier-Journal, and Tuesday one on NBC or CBS Nightly News. People were seeing bears all over the state, and in Virginia as well. They had quit hibernating, and were apparently planning to spend the winter in the medians of the interstates. There have always been bears in the mountains of Virginia, but not here in western Kentucky, not for almost a hundred years. The last one was killed when Mother was a girl. The theory in the Courier-Journal was that they were following 1-65 down from the forests of Michigan and Canada, but one old man from Allen County (interviewed on nationwide TV) said that there had always been a few bears left back in the hills, and they had come out to join the others now that they had discovered fire.

“They don’t hibernate anymore,” I said. “They make a fire and keep it going all winter.”

“I declare,” Mother said. “What’ll they think of next!”

The nurse came to take her tobacco away, which is the signal for bedtime.

(13) PRE-ARRIVAL RAVES. Comedian Patton Oswalt (who is also a geek supreme) did a tweet storm that raved about the upcoming movie Arrival, based on Ted Chiang’s “Story of Your Life.”

(1) 'Scuse my mini-Tweet storm, but I just saw ARRIVAL and my mind is racing.

— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) October 14, 2016

(2) They got Ted Chiang right. They got SCIENCE FICTION right. Thoughtful & poetic but also edge-of-your-seat tense.

— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) October 14, 2016

(3) It uses elements of Spielberg, Tarkovsky, Marker, Lynch, Nolan, Kubrick & even Lovecraft & Bradbury…

— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) October 14, 2016

(4) …but all in completely new, jarring & beautiful ways.

— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) October 14, 2016

(5) In short, go see ARRIVAL. Holy shit. Tweet storm ended, sorry…

— Patton Oswalt (@pattonoswalt) October 14, 2016

Arrival comes to theaters on November 11.

(14) STOP THE PRESSES. While I was finishing the Scroll (or so I thought) Tom Becker posted this instant classic Dylanesque filk lyrics.

Scroll along the pixel tower
Filers kept the view
While all the SMOFs came and went
Techno-peasants, too
Outside, in the distance
An angry troll did growl
Two puppies were approaching
The wind began to howl

[Thanks to Rob Thornton. John King Tarpinian, Petréa Mitchell, and Will R. for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Josh Jasper. Hate to disillusion anyone, but I don’t know what this one means myself…]

Anthony Burgess, Fibber

Posted on November 22, 2012 by Mike Glyer

Jonathan Lethem, at Salon, remembers embarrassing himself while getting an autograph from Anthony Burgess. He asked —

The Wanting Seed, my favorite of his novels – could it, possibly, by any chance, have been influenced by the writing of Philip K. Dick? (I now know that Burgess’s novel was written well before any of Dick’s major novels had appeared; the question was foolish.)

“I don’t read science fiction,” Burgess hissed, taking his revenge now.

But he knew who I was talking about.

This happened in 1985.

Greg Benford, pointing to Lethem’s post, put the lie to Burgess’ claim.

Anthony Burgess didn’t read science fiction ? Oh yeah?

In 1981 he wrote me a letter about Timescape…

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Tag Archives: Anthony Burgess

Pixel Scroll 2/17/23 If Those Pixels Would Just Scroll Faster

Pixel Scroll 4/1/22 This Title Contains A Non-Fungible Tribble

Pixel Scroll 11/8/20 I Know This Defies The Law Of Pixel Scrolling, But I Never Studied Law

Pixel Scroll 4/25/19 When Other Pixels Have Been Fifthgot, Ours Will Still Scroll Hot

Pixel Scroll 10/15/16 Go Hang A Pixel, I’m A Lasagna Scroll.

Anthony Burgess, Fibber